


pretty much business

by 10Hates



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Acxa is slowly learning friendship, Acxa-centric, Canon-Compliant up to s6, Gen, Happiness (mostly) with a sad ending, Lotor is nice, Mostly drabbles about Lotor and his team, Pre-Canon, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10Hates/pseuds/10Hates
Summary: Acxa knows some things about life, she’s not naive, despite still being pretty young. One of the things she knows is that friendship is not a concept that can be trusted. The relationships between her and others are mostly pretty much business, and she’d like to keep it this easy, understandable way.Then Prince Lotor comes around, and Acxa starts to wonder if she needs to rethink her life principles.





	pretty much business

The first time Acxa meets _him_ , she works at General Raht’s command. She’s not a lieutenant, not even close — barely a sergeant, in fact, if ranks make any difference in the middle of nowhere, or, more specifically, Teide system space base. Not that she has someone to boast about her importance, or rant about some general stuff, or whine about how underestimated she is, anyway. That is, firstly, because there are hardly any living soldiers on the base, and secondly, because that’s something that normal Galra who have friends do.

Acxa knows some things about life, she’s not naive, despite still being pretty young.

One of the things she knows is that she is not a normal galra — the fact that the percentage of non-Galra genetic material in her DNA was about 50 per cent was obvious even without medical analysis, as she simply didn’t look Galran. Too slim, too small, short on muscle mass, or fangs, or distinguishable fur, with small, ugly ears being a cherry on top. The definition of a genetical flaw, if you ask any qualified military scientist.

Another thing she knows is that friendship is not a concept that can be trusted. The relationships between her and others are mostly pretty much business, and she’d like to keep it this easy, understandable way.

It is pretty much business that she tries to pretend that she _does not_ want to strangle Raht when he pulls her out of her sleep two vargas past curfew and starts barking some orders about how she needs to guard some kind of shipment to a different colony. She doesn’t want to lose her position, after all — even if it’s just a post in the middle of nowhere, she worked hard to get it, as well as her “barely a sergeant” insignia. Besides, Teide is lovely. Seeing the natives being enslaved and understanding that she might have been in their place, but she is not, gives her a particularly nice feeling.

It is pretty much business that she nods indifferently to the orders and heads to the hangar, where the ship is already prepared for the flight, and heads to her place at the security control panel. Sure, it’s not her favorite kind of job — she’d love to get more action, but it’s not like something really happens anywhere nearby for her to partake in. But it’s gonna help the glory of the Galra Empire (“ _Hail Emperor Zarkon, vrepit sa!_ ”).

Like her father said, “Help your commanding officer to help the Empire to help Emperor Zarkon (“ _Long live the Emperor, vrepit sa!_ ”) to help you, and that’s how you keep on working!”. He never managed to become anyone more than a private, though.

But his advice worked — she felt obliged to serve, and that kept her from killing her superiors, which was, in fact, really great. As if she’ll have any promotion prospects after that.

What happens next, when the ship safely reaches the LZ, is in fact, not business at all.

“Sergeant Acxa, system Teide, at your disposal,” she states blankly, eyeing the hybrid who came to meet her and file the documents on the ship and the cargo. She has never seen insignias like his before, but, knowing that a hybrid will never get much recognition, assumes that he must be some kind of a technitian or a clerk. Don’t they get droids for these jobs? She doesn’t complain, because a living someone is better than a piece of metal, and having a hybrid to deal with is _just_ (a hybrid can’t exactly call you a _lazy hybrid bastard_ every five seconds, like some Galrans, because, well, they’re a hybrid as well).

“Oh, a pleasure to meet you!” he lights up and smiles. It’s not annoying or dorky, like what you expect from his sort, but rather gentle, polite. Something you won’t usually hear from your fellow soldiers, but definitely would like to. “I am Prince Lotor.”

For a second, Acxa is smitten by the manners of the guy — and then she is terrified.

She has heard of the infamous Prince, of course, but hardly ever saw him. Heard he was “exiled” — well, not really, as Zarkon is not a fool to toss away his one and only heir, but hidden from the public. This colony is not stated as Lotor’s in the manuals, that’s for sure.

She straightens her back, puts herself together and salutes hastily, mumbling something like “Long live Prince Lotor, vrepit sa!”.

It is one thing to dream about killing general Raht in his sleep, and it is another thing to behave in a wrong way in front of royalty. If she messes up, who knows what can happen? She has heard that Lotor is odd, and there are a lot of things that can be declared “odd”. For example, he might like tossing folks he _doesn’t like_ onto the witch’s table.

As Acxa squeezes her eyes tight, trying not to envision her grim fate, Lotor starts laughing in a strange way. She’s never heard something like that before. It’s neither a malicious giggle of the gossipers, nor is it an evil laughter of some especially blood-thirsty soldiers who have finally gotten into battle. It’s _soft_ , and reminds her of something she can’t quite recall, and Lotor says “What’s gotten onto you, Sergeant? _I don’t bite!_ ”, and Lotor jokes, and Lotor keeps his kind attitude, and before Acxa knows, she is not scared, tired or angry, no, she feels at ease, she feels like she doesn’t need to pretend, and when she jokes about killing Raht, tearing his joints of his body, she receives a genuine laugh.

While the sentries are taking the cargo to the warehouses and checking the ship for malfunctions, Lotor says (Acxa doesn’t understand if he says it jokingly _or not_ ) “Why I could use someone like you out here. You seem like a good enough sort. Won’t go ranting about some nonsense like everyone else, now will you?”.

“Sound like a good offer to me.” Acxa lets out a huff and smiles, deciding that it’s just some joke, because hey, it’s not like she has ever been lucky enough to think that she could have actually received a job offer from Prince Lotor. Doesn’t stop her from thinking about this exchange on the way back, _a hybrid can dream too._

She receives a call from General Raht by the end of the next movement and cannot but blink when he states that from now on, she is working for Prince Lotor, and she’d better pack her stuff right now if she wants to “get her hybrid ass on board of the next cargo ship”.

Acxa returns to her quarters and stares into the wall blankly.

 _Maybe_ she could use someone to rant to at the moment.


End file.
